Brush Back, by Sara Paretsky

Brush Back by Sara Paretsky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Live long enough, you're bound to have a person or two from the past you'd rather keep there. In Sara Paretsky's latest V.I. Warshawski mystery, Brush Back, that person is the difficult Stella Guzzo, a woman who spent twenty-five years in prison for the murder of her daughter, Annie.

When Frank Guzzo arrives at V.I.'s office with a favor to ask, Vic almost turns him down. Frank wants Vic's help in exonerating his mother, an angry woman who hated Vic's beloved parents - especially her mother, Gabriella - and who has recently gotten out of prison for the murder of her daughter. Against her better judgement, V.I. agrees to go back to the old neighborhood to ask questions.

Meanwhile, Vic also has company - Bernie, the daughter of one of her late cousin Boom-Boom's team mates, a likable and high-spirited teen who occasionally tags along while Vic checks out a few leads from Frank and Stella's past.

Before long, the questioning has Vic in trouble with several of the local corrupt politicos, some with ties to the Russian mob, as well as several of Chicago's gangs. The run-ins nearly cost Vic her life, as well as getting Bernie injured.

Will Vic get Stella exonerated? Will she manage to get Bernie back to her parents alive? How does Vic escape more gang and mob violence with her life? Will her latest love-interest, Jake, stick around? All these, and more, make this one of the best books in Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series - all of which are well-written nail-biting page-turners.

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One True Thing, by Anna Quindlen

One True Thing by Anna Quindlen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Ellen Gulden visits her parents' home for a few days, she does not expect her life to drastically change. But that is exactly what happens in One True Thing by Anna Quindlen.

Ellen has a successful career as a magazine writer in New York City that suits her perfectly. During her visit home, she and her brothers learn that their mother, Kate, is dying of cancer. Their father, George, lets Ellen know that he expects her to leave her job to come home and care for Kate, as no one else will do; her brothers are still in college, George, a professor at a local college, cannot take time off, and demands that Ellen is the one who will care for Kate. Ellen resists, but, in the end, is back soon to care for Kate.

The first part of One True Thing shows the interactions of the two women, one who is driven to the point of having been described as "the girl who would walk over her mother in golf shoes," the other a homemaker to perfection. Ellen has always lived for her father's approval, while rejecting her mother's traditional life. Yet she comes to realize that there is much more to her mother than she had realized.

As part one progresses, so does Kate's cancer, so that at the end of the first part, she finally passes away...with a little help.

Part two of the novel details the aftermath of Kate's death. Ellen is arrested, as the district attorney (along with others in town) thinks that Ellen has performed a mercy-killing of her mother, for several reasons: she was Kate's primary care-giver, an autopsy showed that Kate had enough morphine in her system to kill her (morphine having been prescribed to keep her pain to a manageable level), and, years earlier, a then 15-year-old Ellen had written that euthanasia should be legal; if we put a terminal pet to sleep, why not people?

Of course, Ellen didn't do it; she suspects her father did. We read where Ellen stays, how she deals with a grand jury, how she mistakenly believes her father helped assist Kate in dying, and, in the end, how it turns out both were wrong: neither one killed Kate.

One True Thing may sound morbid, and while part of the story's premise - dying of cancer - may be difficult, the book is actually beautifully written and shows how the two main characters (Ellen and Kate) grow closer because of the horrible circumstances. Anna Quindlen has taken what could be a difficult premise and used it to skillfully write a beautiful story of love, strength, and the idea that things are not always as they appear. It is a book to be read again and again.

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Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach

Note: This is a repeat of 2017's sole post, with slight changes. I should be back to writing here on a regular basis.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

During the early 1970s, it seemed everyone read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I had read it several times, and had fond memories of it.

Several years ago, I received a copy of this slim book from two different people and decided to reread it to see how it stood up over the intervening years. Since then, I've reread it several times, usually during the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull tells of a seagull who doesn't quit fit in and is banned from his flock as a misfit. Jonathan's misdeed? He loves to fly, loves learning how to improve on flight, how to fly faster, and knows that such learning is, itself, what makes life worth living. The flock, however, has come to the understanding that flight should be merely to be used for food-gathering. Thus, since Jonathan can't comply with living beneath what he is capable of, he is labeled a misfit and cast out of the flock.

It doesn't take long for him to reach a higher consciousness, learning from those who have gone on before him. However, those gulls who teach him soon admit that Jonathan is higher than they are, and that the student has become a teacher.

Soon Jonathan realizes that he must go back to his previous flock and start teaching the newer out-casts, several of whom call him the Son of the Great Gull.

This novella, with its photos of seagulls, can be considered spiritual in nature without being preachy. It shows the reader that we all need to be the best we can be, that we should be our truest self, and while we are learning from those more knowledgeable than we are, we are also to teach those coming up after us.

This is one book that I feel has held up well over the years. It is also one of the books that I read every year, usually sometime after Christmas, and wrapping around New Year's Day.

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Critical Mass, by Sara Paretsky

Critical Mass by Sara Paretsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

V.I. Warshawski's friend Lotty Herschel came to the U.S. via London while escaping the Holocaust. When Lotty hears from Judy, the daughter of Kitty - who escaped to London, then the U.S. with Lotty - saying that her life is in danger, Lotty asks Vic to help Judy in Critical Mass by Sara Paretsky.

Critical Mass begins with a flashback to Lotty's childhood, bringing in bits of her escape from Vienna as a child; these flashbacks throughout the book give substance to Lotty's life and how Kitty, Judy, and Judy's son Martin fit into the story.

Vic is pulled in several directions: First, she treks to an old farmhouse where Judy - a drug addict with a past - had been hiding out, and where she'd since left when someone started shooting up the drug addicts in the house, which is where we first find Vic. She then must find Kitty in order to get a little more background, and to try getting a lead on where Judy might be. Judy's son Martin has also disappeared, leaving a good job where he used his skills as a software designer.

As Vic struggles to find Judy and Martin, Kitty is killed by those wanting to kill her daughter and grandson. It becomes a race as to who will find the two first, Vic or those wanting to silence the two.

For anyone wanting a fast-paced book, especially but not exclusively fans of Sara Paretsky V.I. Warshawski series, Critical Mass is sure to please.

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At Risk, by Alice Hoffman

At Risk by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Have you ever gone back to reread a book that you were first introduced to, and found that it still holds up? Then you'll know how I felt upon rereading At Risk, by Alice Hoffman.

Written during the 1980s, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, the book follows Amanda Farrell, an 11-year-old gymnast who dreams of being a pupil of Bela Karolyi. Her parents, Ivan, a scientist, and Polly, a photographer, take Amanda to her meets, bringing along her eight-year-old brother Charlie, whose fascination with dinosaurs (and science, in general) rivals Amanda's love of gymnastics.

The book opens with Polly getting ready to bring the children to one of Amanda's meets, as Ivan heads for work. Amanda has been fighting what her parents thought was a summer cold that lasted a little too long. It is after the meet when Polly goes to find Amanda that she and Ivan realize that it might be more than just a cold. In fact, it turns out to be AIDS, picked up from a blood transfusion during an appendectomy, several years earlier.

The book follows the family's first few months of Amanda's illness, and the small New England town's dealings with the family.

While science has advanced to where people living with HIV/AIDS are able to live a longer, more productive life, the book shows how the disease affected patients during the 1980s, letting the reader see that no one "deserves" the disease.

For anyone who has never read the book, or hasn't read it in years, Alice Hoffman's At Risk is well worth the read.

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11/22/63

Note: This was originally posted February 8, 2018. 11/22/63 by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For years, I wouldn't read anything by Stephen King, as I had never been a fan of horror stories. But after devouring King's Dolores Claiborne one rainy day, I learned what Stephen King fans have known for years: King is a wickedly good writer.

While 11/22/63 is not King's longest novel, by far, its 849-page length might put off readers. However, the only thing about this novel that one needs to fear is the inability to put the book down once started; it captivates the reader, holding one through its final paragraphs.

Thirty-five year old high school English teacher Jake Epping earns extra money teaching GED classes in the evening. An essay by student Harry Dunning describing the night his father killed his mother and siblings, and nearly killing Harry, leaves its mark Jake.

Shortly after Harry receives his GED, Jake gets a call from his friend Al, who owns a nearby diner. Turns out Harry was not the only one with secrets: Al insists on showing Jake the diner's storage room which has a portal to 1958.

Jake has wondered how Al has aged so rapidly in such a short period of time, until he learns that no matter how long someone is in the past, when that person comes back through the portal to Al's diner, only a few minutes have passed in the present time.

Al, who is now dying, has one request: for Jake to stop the assassination of President John Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. Jake goes through the portal several times, sees how changing one or two lesser histories affect the present, then agrees to try to stop JFK's death.

The one thing that Al warns Jake about is that every time one goes through the portal to 1958, the previous changes are erased: a girl who was saved from a paralyzing gunshot in one trip is reinjured after Jake reenters 1958, as well as several other changes.

Jake spends five years in the past, manages to save JFK, but at a heavy cost to himself, as well as those around him. And the present he comes back to is drastically different from the one he left. Does he go back through the portal to reset history, or leave it as changed?

I highly recommend Stephen King's 11/22/63 to anyone looking for a good read. The book is sure to become one of King's fans' favorites; for those readers who have avoided King's works as I did for years, this book is sure to change one's mind into wanting to read more of King's work.

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The Art of Mending, by Elizabeth Berg

The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are times when siblings growing up under the same roof experience very different family dynamics without realizing it until years later. That is the theme of The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg.

Every year, Laura Bartone and her siblings meet up at their parents' home in Minneapolis for their annual family reunion and the state fair. It's an event that is usually happy, until this year.

Upon her arrival, Laura realizes something is drastically wrong with her sister Caroline. Their brother, Steve, has trouble coming to terms with Caroline's changes, while Laura is, at least, willing to listen. The things that Caroline reveals about her past with their parents show a side of the family dynamics that rattle Laura to the core. As she tries coming to terms with her sister's truths, the siblings are thrown another curve when their father dies.

The siblings must come to terms with what they are learning; by the end of the book, Caroline's truths are proven true when their mother and aunt state how different things were for all three siblings.

The Art of Mending is written wonderfully, as is usual for books by Elizabeth Berg. This is worth the reader's time, especially if curious about family dynamics.

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